Los Angeles daily herald., 1887-10-24
DAILY HERALD.
PREHISTORIC RACES.
The Navajos and Their
Strange Traditions.
THE CREATION AND DELUGE.
Historic vestige of Ancient Tribes
and Curious Traditions Of
the Native Races.

sShould you ask me whence tnese sVories,
whence these legends and traditions,
With the odors Of the forest,
With the dewdrop of the meadows,
with the curling smoke OF wlgwams,
With the rushing of great rivers,
With their frequent repetltions,
And their wild reverbel ations?
should answer, should tell you,
From the forests and the pralr1es,
FROM the great lakes OF the Northland,
From the land OF the Ojibways,
From the land of the Dacotas,
From the mountains, moors and fenlanus,
Where the heron, the Shushugah,
Feeds among the reeds and rushes'
The HERALD, short time since,
published some of the traditions of the
Zuni tribe in Arizona, in their quaint
and incredible statements. Between
the Zuni and the Moquis is the tribe
Of the Navajos, and the following is
their tradition of the origin of man:
1t states that in the beginning all
men lived in the center of the earth.
One day Navajo accidentally
touched the top of the cave and heard
q hollow sound which awakened his
curiosity and tempted his tribe to dig
through the ground. After digging
some distance they found they were
nearing the top and sent up raccoon
as q pioneer. He failed to make any
progress and on coming down on
earth an angleworm was Put in his
stead. He bored hole through the
earth crust into the air, and while
stopping to rest discovered four great
white swans at the four cardinal
points of the compass, each with an
arrow under his wing. The swan
from the north first rushed upon him
and thrusting his arrow through his
body retired. The other three in
ferior swans performed a similar ser
vice when the worm retired from the
field through the ''hole-in-the-
ground" The worm and the arrows
that transfxed him made the hole so
large that the raccoon went to work
and enlarged it 80 that he could go
through and the Navaios followed the
raccOOn.
When they arrived on the surface of
the earth there were neither sun,
moon nor stars and no armament dis
cernible. A council of war and ex-
pediency was called and all the wisest
Of the tribe set to work to manufacture
the sun, moon and stars. The sun
was first made and placed upon a
rock, where the priests pulled smoke
in his face, which caused him to be
red and wrathy and rose above the
reach of these new dwellers on the
earth, but out of sympathy gave them
sunshine half the time, till the whole
country Of Arizona, New Mexico,
Sonora, Colorado and Northern Texas
became filed with these people, and
the ruins of their work remain to this
day.
A few miles east Of Zuni is mass Of
white sand stone in quadrangulal
form called Inscription Rock" 1t is
nearly mile in length and 200 feet in
height. On it's ancient sides travellers
have inscribed their names for centu.
ries. Some are very clearly and well
done in Spanish, dated in 1906. Upon
the top of the rocks are the ruins of
two pueblos, with their dimensions
clearly outlined, and within them
pieces of painted pottery of unknown
age.
The inscriptions contain a notice il
Spanish that the inscribers were
priests travelling as missionaries to
convert the heather to knowledge of
God, or are bulletins of soldiers max
ing q conquest of the land under Coro-
nado.
Lieutenahts Whipple and Ives, OF
the United States Typographical
Engineers, in running a line for
the "Thirty-fifth PARALLEL in Novem-
her, 1853, reached Zuni, and made
many discoveries at that prehistoric
place.
The tribe had been recently ravaged
by the smallpox, which had destroyed
more than half the population, reduc-
ing the number from 1000 in 1851, tc
1000 in 1858.
Pedro Pine was then chief of the
tribe, and had been for many years
It will be remembered that this cente.
marian visited Washington, ID. c., in
1882, and shook hands with President
Arthur, whom Pine called Washing.
ton" All Zunis call all the presi-
dents Washington. He went to Mount
Vernon and wept at the tomb of the
GreatF ather till he became sick and re-
manned some time convalescent, while
his attendant ministers went to Boston
to fill their sacred reeds with the
waters Of the "Sunrise Ocean,"
When he recovered his health, his
son, an old man, told him that he had
climbed upward on the Washington
monument till his thighs said "No."
The curiosity of the old man was SO
much excited by the account which he
gave that he determined to climb it
himself, and did 80 on the following
day, but the effort nearly killed him.
His son is the present chief of the
Zunis.
The ruins of ancient Zuni are on the
top of a bold table land at the foot of
which is deep cafion with a spring Of
water. Here, followed from the sand
stone, is a cave and an artificial path
to it hewn out of the rocks. On the
grade of the path are numerous barri-
cades of stone, which, the Zunis say,
were built for protection against the
Spanisrds under Coronado, more than
three hundred years ago. From these
barricades the Zunis repulsed the in
vaders by hurling rocks down upon
them with terrific force.
On the opposite of the mesa are two
stone pillars, of which they have a
legend that many centuries ago the
waters suddenly covered the whole
earth, and only those of the people
Who climbed to the top of the noun
tain were saved, while all the rest
we're drowned. As the waters kept
rising the Zunis determined to
appease their angry gods before the
whole people should be destroyed,
To that end they selected the bravest
of their young men and the most
beautiful of their young women and
cast them down lofty precipice into
the :roaring rising flood below. At
once the floods began to recede and
when the dry land appeared the